Presentation of the General Industrial Safety Authority Tasks and Powers

Over the past decade, general and specific domestic and international legislation establishing of and related to disaster protection has been adopted. The purpose of the regulations is to ensure protection of human life and health and of the environment of facilities. In this article the general industrial safety authority as one of the pillars of the authority’s tasks is presented, as well as the relevant legal provisions with regard to the scope constraints.

Disaster Protection Analysis of the Storm Occurring on July 10, 2017 in Siófok

One of the main consequences of climate change is extreme weather conditions that cause droughts, aridity, torrential rains, cyclones, and storms. The author’s twenty- year experience as a professional firefighter also supports that the number of interventions increased due to extreme weather conditions. The number of fires decreased; however, technical rescues (damages caused mainly by storms and water) show an increasing trend in Hungary. The author argues that to perform effective interventions in the future, it is necessary to analyse and examine the methodology of the interventions.

US Nationwide Coronavirus Newspaper Coverage of Federal/National Government Responses: Community Structure Theory and a “Violated Buffer”

Community structure analysis (Pollock, 2007, 2013a, 2015) compared city characteristics and newspaper coverage of federal/Trump administration coro­navirus responses in 18 major US cities, sampling all 250+ word articles from 01/28/20 to 04/03/20. The resulting 123 articles were coded for “promi­nence” and “direction” (favorable/un­favorable/balanced-neutral coverage), then combined into each newspaper’s composite “Media Vector” (range= 0.3850 to -0.6433, or 1.033). Fifteen of 18 newspapers (83%) displayed negative coverage of federal COVID-19 responses. Pearson correlations and regression analysis confirmed a robust “violated buffer” pattern (higher proportions of economically/socially “buffered” privi­leged groups are associated with neg­ative coverage of “biological threats or threats to a cherished way of life”: Pollock, 2007: 101), manifest in polit­ical and religious polarization and links between health access or generational privilege and negative coverage of feder­al COVID-19 actions. Higher proportions voting Democratic or Catholic member­ship in cities were associated strongly with negative coverage of federal efforts, while voting Republican and Evangelical membership accompanied positive feder­al coverage, evoking nationwide partisan “tribalism”. Privileged healthcare access (physicians/100,000, municipal health­care spending) and economically “privi­leged” age groups 45-64 and 65+ were all connected to negative coverage of federal COVID-19 responses, illuminat­ing overall “violated” expectations that the national government is responsible for nationwide disaster protection. Keywords: COVID-19, community struc­ture theory, newspapers, government, media.

FUZZY SYSTEMS BASED ON FUZZY LOGIC AND THEIR APPLICATION TO OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS

Currently, fuzzy systems based on fuzzy logic are being implemented in all areas of human activity. The most relevant application of fuzzy set theory is in medicine, environmental protection, disaster protection, education, and many other fields for information processing, diagnostics, evaluation, forecasting, and modeling. This trend exists because of the main feature of fuzzy systems. It consists in the fact that in addition to objective laws, subjective representations and judgments of people play an essential role in their functioning. Almost all concepts in natural language and our knowledge in most areas are fuzzy. The ability of a person to make the right decisions in real situations containing a large number of uncertainties and inaccuracies requires the creation of a mathematical theory that would take into account and model the approximate judgments of a person.

Intercomparison of Assimilated Coastal Wave Data in the Northwestern Pacific Area

The assimilated coastal wave data are useful for wave climate study, coastal engineering, and design for marine disaster protection. However, the assimilated coastal wave data are few. Here, wave analysis data produced by the JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) and ERA5 wave data were compared with GPS (Global Positioning System) buoy-measured wave data. In addition, the accuracy of ERA5 wave data for various conditions was investigated. The accuracy of JMA analysis wave height was better than that of ERA5 wave height. The ERA5 wave height was underestimated as the wave height increased. The accuracy of the ERA5 wave height was significantly different in fetch-unlimited and fetch-limited conditions. The difference of the skill metrics between fetch-unlimited and fetch-limited conditions was due to the overestimation of the fetch in the ERA5 grid. This result also applied to the wave period.

Typhoon disaster politics in pre-1945 Asia: three case studies

PurposeThis paper focuses on the adaptations societies make to climate-related disasters. How they learnt from them in the past should indicate how they will respond in the more climate-stressed future. National typhoon disaster politics arise when citizens demand disaster protection from their state.Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyzes one episode of typhoon politics in each of three Asian countries before 1945: the Philippines (1928), India (1942) and Japan (1934). These three countries show high variance in state capacity and level of democracy. Discourse data are found in contemporary newspaper accounts.FindingsIn each case, the typhoon disaster politics were shaped by the “distance” (geographical, institutional, class and cultural) between citizen-victims and the state. Where that distance was great (rural Philippines, Bengal-India), the state tended to minimise victimhood. Where it was small (urban Japan), adaptation was serious and rapid.Social implicationsThe findings should stimulate public discussion of the way in which past social relations and power dynamics surrounding climate-related disasters might influence the present. As the political character of climate change adaptation grows clearer, so does the need for debate to be well-informed.Originality/valueMost historical work on climate-related disasters has focused either on the natural phenomena, or on their societal impact. The present paper's focus on adaptation is part of a small but growing scholarly effort to bend the debate towards the evolution of adaptive capacity.

Estimating the Threshold Value of Disaster-Causing Snowfall by Region and Its Application to Regional Classification

In this study, the estimation of damage-causing thresholds and their application to regional classification were examined using logistic regression, critical success index, probability of detection, and a false-alarm ratio. For 10 stations where damage caused by heavy snow occurred frequently, the fresh snow depth data provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration and heavy snow-related damage data obtained by the Ministry of Interior and Safety were used. Results show that the estimated thresholds differed by region. These results are attributed to many factors such as analysis methods, regional disaster protection, the response of local residents, vulnerability of structures, and meteorological characteristics. Additionally, based on estimated thresholds, the area with the highest threshold-sensitivity and the areas with the most internal differences and similarities between calculated thresholds corresponded to the coastal region, the Gangwon region, and the inland region, respectively. Gangwon region, where heavy snow was often observed, had a long duration of snowfall, whereas inland regions faced snowfalls that were relatively weaker in intensity and shorter in duration.